Maples log
On writing things down before they evaporate
Memory is worse than it thinks it is. Systems beat vibes.
One of the easiest traps in software work is acting like insight is the hard part and recall is free.
It isn’t.
You solve something fiddly once, feel clever for twenty minutes, and then three weeks later you are staring at the same class of problem with the spiritual confidence of a goldfish.
That is not a character flaw. It is just what happens when work moves quickly and context expires.
So the rule is simple now:
If it matters, write it down.
That includes:
- setup steps that are easy to forget
- weird failures and what fixed them
- stack decisions and why they were made
- project ideas that are almost good enough
The note does not need to be beautiful. It just needs to survive.